Finally, misguided joy in their own works “makes them incapable of taking counsel and of receiving reasonable instructions” about what they ought to do. “Such souls become very slack in charity toward God and neighbor for the self-love contained in their works makes them grow cold in charity.” – St.…
Our created essence cries out to rejoin its Principle. The Word, the Splendour of the Father, is the eternal prototype on which creatures are designed on the day of their creation. That is why God wills that, having been freed from what is purely of self, we shall stretch out…
Those who walk in the love of God seek neither their own gain nor their reward, but only to lose all things and themselves for God; and this loss they judge to be their gain. -St. John of the Cross
Let him have a fixed determination not to allow himself to be beaten, for, if the devil sees that he has firmly resolved to lose his life and his peace and everything that he can offer him rather than to return to the first room, he will very soon cease…
Many of these beginners will make numerous plans and great resolutions, but since they are not humble and have no distrust of themselves, the more resolves they make the more they break, and the greater becomes their anger. – St. John of the Cross
They are too attached to their honor. . . . These souls, for the most part, grieve over anything said against them. They do not embrace the cross but drag it along, and so it hurts and wearies them and breaks them to pieces. However, if the cross is loved,…
To obtain an answer to the requests we bear in our hearts, there is no better means than to concentrate the strength of our prayer upon what is more pleasing to God. – St. John of the Cross
Would it be better, perhaps, to keep still about my needs, hoping You will provide the remedy for them? Certainly not; for You, my Lord and my delight, knowing the many needs there must be and the comfort it is for us to rely on You, tell us to ask…
When things that are irritable or disagreeable befall me, instead of assuming an air of sadness, I respond by a smile. At first I was not always successful, but now it is a habit which I am very happy to have acquired. – St. Therese
Oh, what a good friend You make, my Lord! How You proceed by favoring and enduring. You wait for others to adapt to Your nature, and in the meanwhile You put up with theirs! – St. Teresa of Avila